Standard & Poor's has restructured its coverage of new collateralized debt obligations in New York. Vandana Sharma, who previously coordinated the rating agency's coverage of CDOs, said she will now focus on analyzing specific CDO transactions. She started in her new role last month. In her prior position, Sharma was "the CDO gatekeeper," assigning specific deals to individual analysts. Now, she will be one of those analysts.
Bankers sending CDOs to S&P for potential analysis will now need to send them to Brian O'Keefe, formerly a CDO analyst at the rating agency and the new analytical coordinator for CDOs. Richard Gugliada, managing director and head of the CDO group in New York, said the move was purely based on accommodating the wishes of the parties involved. "She wanted to get more into the substance of rating deals," he said of Sharma. She reports to Gugliada.